Cryptocurrencies

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) –  It took two economists one three-course meal   and two bottles of wine to calculate the fair value of one Bitcoin: $200.  It took an extra day for them to realize they were one decimal place out: $20,   they decided, was the right price for a virtual currency that was worth $1,200 a   year ago, flirted with $20,000 in December, and is still around $8,000. Setting  …

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Bitcoin fell after one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges was said to face a government rebuke for operating without a license in Japan, heightening concern that increased regulatory scrutiny will curb demand for digital assets. Japan’s Financial Services Agency is planning to tell Binance, the trading venue founded by Zhao Changpeng, to stop operating in the country without official approval, a person familiar with the matter said. Binance has…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Bitcoin, Ethereum and other virtual currencies should face tougher European Union regulation and be covered under MiFID II rules, according to one of the bloc’s top lawmakers.  Such a move would help set common standards across the 28-member bloc and help the EU lead global oversight efforts of the rapidly expanding industry, Markus Ferber, the lead lawmaker on MiFID II in the European Parliament, said by email on Tuesday….

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Bitcoin is marching toward its second day of gains as traders showed relief over comments Tuesday by U.S. securities regulators, who called for greater oversight of cryptocurrencies without proposing industry-killing measures. The largest digital token headed to its first back-to-back increase in almost two weeks, rising 4.4 percent to $8,107 by 10:49 a.m. in New York, after earlier rising above $8,600 for the first time this week, according to prices compiled by Bloomberg….

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – Bitcoin has been a plaything for risk-hungry traders and punters rather than a widely held investment or real-world currency. It’s been shunned by banks and banned by governments. Yet it’s still possible that its slide on Monday made the broader market selloff worse, as investors sold assets to compensate for crypto-losses. Marginal as this may be, and you can’t be certain of correlation with something as unstable as digital…

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Lithuanian startup Prodeum set out to raise as much as 5,400 Ether (about $6.5 million) in an initial coin offering, ostensibly to revolutionize the agriculture industry and put fruit on the blockchain. That’s not the strange part. Tracking produce could actually be a good use for the technology, and some legit firms are already doing it, so investors can be forgiven for signing up. But then there’s the name.  “Prodeum” is spelled almost…